Look Back at the start of the riding season

The start of the riding seems to have come, and gone, with incredible speed which has resulted in a lack of time to “Look Back” for quite a while.  Once the inclement weather at the beginning of the year passed things significantly picked up with some great riding weather which has made it the busiest start of year ever at ARNY.

Since the start of the year we have conducted 103 training sessions involving 29 Associates, which is way above our normal rate of training start to the year, and has resulted in some, well attended, and very busy Saturday mornings at the Strawberry Fields Café.  The number of active Associates, that is Associates that are actively training, is at an all-time high which is great to see but also puts a bit of pressure on the Tutor team. 

Alongside this we have had an unprecedented number of new members join the club since the start of the year with 21 new members having joined by the end of April.  It is not clear as to why we have had such an influx at the beginning of this year, but it is great to see and we will enjoy managing the challenges that the increased numbers bring.

We had a very successful visit to the Bike Day at Motorist over the Easter break, organised by Jezz Booker, which resulted in six people signing up for taster rides and then joining the club.  We also had a very busy, and successful, Open Day in April which resulted in many more tasters and new members signing up and all of this in addition to those that hear about us through other channels and join up directly through the website.

The social side of the club is fully up and running and at the time of writing many have just returned from the first ARNY social weekend in North Wales which was a huge success thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.  Twenty bikes and thirty attendees enjoyed a great weekend with great roads, fairly good weather and a fun time was had by all.  It was great to see some old hands, as well as some new members, having an enjoyable weekend with a great atmosphere.  These things don’t just happen and there were many thanks expressed to Phill Bates who did a great job organising the whole weekend such that any unforeseen events were, fairly and squarely, in the hands of those impacted, and they know who they are!  As people said their goodbyes thoughts were already going towards the end of season social weekend which will be in Scotland on September 26/27^th.

As well as the social weekends the monthly Sunday socials and Wednesday Wobbles are also up and running and being well led by the Social Ride Leaders who are turning out to be a real asset to the club as the workload on the Tutors continues to increase.  Keep an eye out on all the normal channels for information on the various social rideouts, and other social events, that are open to all paid up ARNY members to attend. 

As well as all the normal ongoing training and social activities, somewhat in the background, the club has been migrating to Spond which is an App that is now being used to manage the activities of the club.  The transition has gone very well and we thank those who have played a key role in moving us from some labour-intensive manual systems for club membership and event management, to Spond.  Whilst there have been a few challenges, we are beginning to see some real benefits from the use of Spond which will help of all the membership as well as making the administration, and background running of the club simpler, easier and more robust.  

We are all continuing to learn how Spond functions in practice and, if you have any issues or concerns, there is a WhatsApp community that has been specifically set up to answer any questions and this has been used very effectively to get people up and running.  There are still some people that, whilst they currently have access to the club via the Spond App, will need to fully register in Spond for that to continue in the future.  Please keep an eye out for any communications on this as you will be contacted through, WhatsApp, email or via the Spond App itself if you need to do anything.  We are doing everything we can to ensure that everybody who wants to continue to be a member of the club can do so through Spond so, if you are having any issues, please do not hesitate to get in contact through the normal channels.

As of 2027 all members of the club will be paying their annual membership at the same time, automatically managed by Spond.  To get to that point, and to be as fair as possible, people will be asked to pay appropriate subs to get us to the point where we are all due to pay our renewal at the same point.  Please keep an eye out for these payment requests, which will be administered through Spond.  Once we have been through this transition throughout 2026, the ongoing management of club subscriptions will become much easier for all concerned.

And while all of this is ongoing there are people doing their ongoing training, completing their training, doing pre-test assessments and successfully passing their tests many for the first time as well as those doing their triannual retests.  There are too many to mention here but many congratulations to all those who have done so and have been successful at the end of a lot of hard work, training, and practice to get to that point.  

Until next time…..